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New Line’s It Reboot Chomps Up The Competition With Massive $123 Million Opening

In what’s shaping up to be one of the more high-profile success stories of 2017, New Line and Warner Bros. have deemed It to be a box office monster.

Coming out of the film’s opening weekend, both studios posted $117 million as a conservative estimate, citing Hurricane Irma and the NFL as potential factors in It‘s domestic tally. Turns out the Andy Muschietti thrill ride blew past all expectations though to reach an eye-watering $123 million on home turf which, coupled with the $62 million from overseas, makes for a historic opening not just for a horror pic, but any September release regardless of genre.

Only Beauty and the Beast and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 earned more in 2017, which is an impressive feat in and of itself given how those two big-name tentpoles finished their theatrical runs with $1.2 billion and $863 million, respectively. That’s not to say that It will reach similar heights, but New Line and Andy Muschietti’s reboot is well on its way to becoming one of the most successful releases of the year. And deservedly so, we might add.

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Beyond talk of box office numbers, Pennywise himself Bill Skarsgard sat down with IGN to discuss his portrayal of Stephen King’s abomination and, more importantly, how New Line handled their titular monster throughout the film’s marketing campaign. Favoring a less-is-more approach, it’s worth noting that Skarsgard was entirely absent in order to maintain some semblance of mystery around Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

I do think that that’s definitely a strategy from their part, you know, to have … yeah. I don’t know, it doesn’t make much sense to me. But there’s a mystery to the character. I guess they kind of want to keep sort of an illusion that Pennywise is not played by an actor.

But, you know, it’s, I’m completely fine with it. I understand and I appreciate that there’s a separation of it. The character needs to be treated with respect in the sense that you can’t just kind of goof around with him in sort of PR campaigning. … The character needs to be taken seriously.